Cities in Dust
by TheKillingJar
Summary: Michael graduates, changing the group dynamic. Pete feels his world crumbling around him. Michael/Pete.


**A/N: Just a pointless little one-shot~**

* * *

" _Under the mountain, a golden fountain_

 _Were you praying at the Lares shrine?_

 _But ohh, oh your city lies in dust_

 _Ohh, oh your city lies in dust, my friend"_

 _~Cities in Dust, Siouxsie and the Banshees_

* * *

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._ The analogue clock sat upon his classroom wall taunting him. Pete could practically hear it whispering at his misery, _"Times running out."_ It laughed. He sighed, usually the ending of a bullshit school year relieved a weight from his shoulders, but not now. Not when it meant Michael would be leaving. Pete's heart clenched at the mere thought.

 _Brrriinnng._ The bastard bell rang and students leapt joyously from their seats while the goth trudged from his as he attempted to block out their screeches. A shame he could not ignore the dread in the pit of his stomach.

As if to make his day worse, the vamp kids were huddled around the nearest exit. Their leader attempted to capture his attention.

"Pete!" The recent graduate called casually with a wide smile, as if they were anything other than barely tolerated acquaintances. "Sign my yearboo-"

"Kindly fuck off before I get Blade involved."

Pete walked past cheers and tearful farewells and through the chain gate of the student parking lot. He was only mildly surprised that Henrietta got out of the building even swifter than himself and was perched in the driver's seat of her mom's car, waiting on him. She had always displayed incongruity such as that, somewhat of a mystery to even her closest of companions.

Their eyes met in a silent greeting. The goth threw his bag in the back and quickly joined it. Music began as the engine roared to life. Rozz Williams's voice commiserated with his despondency.

Henrietta's driving was as wild as ever. He was thankful for that, hoped that the quirk he had grown so accustomed to would never change.

As the car drove along trees passed in blurs of green. It would have probably been beautiful, but it was the sort of occurrence every ordinary motherfucker would have also thought of as a pleasant sight. Pete made it a point to not be one of the ordinary motherfuckers.

 _"Admiring earthy tones of nature? Minus about five-hundred goth points."_ He joked to himself.

Their first stop was that gods awful fortress of a distant memory known as South Park Elementary. When the car slowed he hardly took note. Clad completely in black with long sleeves, despite the summery breezes, Firkle appeared quickly without much warning. Like Death personified. Beads of sweat dripped from his neat brows and matted hair, his black lipstick slightly smeared.

"Fix that. You look like a fag." He commented while he eyed the younger boy's mouth.

Firkle's lips tightened into tiny black knots as malice glazed his eyes.

"Look who's talking you fucking pillow biter. I don't even own a Harley." He mumbled the last bit to himself indignantly.

Henrietta chuckled airily and Pete couldn't help but to give a strident exhalation in amusement. He missed this, seeing Firkle on a regular basis. Dealing with the smaller goths' jabs and quick temper, even if his low, grating voice rarely made its' presence public. Pete was grateful that Firkle would be joining them in high school when the year started up again. This was of coarse a double edged sword. The gain of Firkle accopanied by the loss of Michael. Pete grumbled, mellow now, his bones slackened in the back seat.

A new found sympathy and veneration for Firkle was brought to light. How had he felt for three years without the rest of them by his side? His outward appearance gave nothing away but if memory served Pete correctly, Firkle's poetry was particularly dark and odium-filled. It must have been quite the blessing that he ended up forming a shaky friendship with that jock brainiac Ike Broflovski, of who he fondly bitched about often within the sanctuaries of Henrietta's bedroom and their Village Inn booth.

His mind had an annoying habit of wandering to Michael when there was nothing else to entertain or while he reminisced. For years now the dark and dreary teen had been the epicenter of Pete's own dark and dreary life. It was quite fitting. Only in the last year the two had cultivated a tentative relationship. Boundaries surely had been crossed and both parties agreed that anything resembling the average, insincere relationships of other conformist teenagers would never apply to them. Pete was more than fine with that notion as he shared the same ideology, but not having a name for exactly what they were made it difficult to know where they stood with one another. Customarily, they made out while watching reruns of The X-Files via VHS tapes, but Pete wasn't really sure if that was an equivalent to a committed relationship.

The continued drive was relatively hushed, save for the lyrical talents of Christian Death. Stray thoughts of the quaint graduation ceremony occupied his mind. Seeing Michael take his diploma was much more like a lucid dream than something that took place in reality.

They arrived at record time thanks to a fair amount of reckless driving. Firkle practically flew up the stairs while Pete, filled with lethargy, hadn't even bothered to take his bag with him. He took his usual seat on the floor while Firkle snatched up Henrietta's Kat Von D lipstick - in the shade of slayer - and rabidly applied it with practiced precision. She scowled all the while.

"That shit's expensive you know."

"Fuck off."

Pete couldn't contain the laugh. "You stole it anyways."

Her face briefly flushed with anger but she eventually shrugged it off. She bustled around her room lighting candles while humming Smothered Hope. This caused a frightening image of her in a 1950's housewife getup to plant itself in his brain.

He flipped the fringe of dark hair from his eye. Still no word from Michael and he did not want his clingy desperation to show through text messaging, thus, he decided it best not to even try to contact his beau.

"Henrietta!" Her mother's cheery voice called. "Guess who's here!" He hoped it was Michael but that was speedily dashed when Henrietta's boyfriend, Damien, stepped in instead. The Alter Boy of Doom apprehensively took a seat at the center. Henrietta greeted him with an enthused kiss to the temple.

"I'll be back." She stated before shutting the door behind her. The three boys sat in awkward silence. He didn't have to turn his head to see Firkle sending the Anti-Christ hostile stares. Yeah, powers that were literally dark and evil were pretty fucking cool at first but the novelty wore off fast. Especially in moments when Damien would pull spectacular and grand stunts in attempt to impress them. He was some outcast who desperately wanted to fit in, using whatever means at his disposal. It was disgustingly conformist.

However, Henrietta would still be enraptured every time he magically turned red traffic lights to green for her.

He was thankful when the door opened and she reentered with a trey full of coffee mugs.

"Guess who decided to show up." The lanky frame of Michael trailed into the room after her.

"Hey." He joined Pete on the floor.

"Hey. Been busy?"

He sighed. "Just my dad and step mom berating me about my own future again. As if they didn't already decide what college I'm going to."

"That sucks. Any plans to burn the house down with them in it."

He chortled lightly. "I've entertained the the thought. Spend the night? They are less inclined to yell when company's over."

"Well since you've reached for my inner hero complex." He rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

Pete was grateful that despite the presence of Damien the night went on in normality. Henrietta bitched about her family, Firkle played with a box of matches, Michael reread Abbey Nightmare for the hundredth time while Pete wrote. Chain smoking made the atmosphere thick and hazy. It almost brought him joy to see the Anti-Christ squirm every now and then from being out of place.

 _"Perhaps it's because you don't belong here, hmm?"_ The thought was petty but he couldn't care less.

They carried on in a similar fashion well past sunset and decided to call it a day a little before eleven o'clock rolled around.

"Think we'll ever grow used to him?" Michael asked as they entered his car.

"Like a useless but not strenuous extra limb? Maybe." The duo share a laugh as they entered the vehicle.

Suspiria took the place of conversation as the car took motion. Pete was ashamed to find himself absently admiring Michael's visage through the grey plums of smoke. Deliberately, he shifted his gaze to the calm night guarded by a window.

 _At once so sweet and innocent_

 _They grow to a ripe age for bloody, tragic sacrifice_

 _They grow to an age where the lover forgets delights_

 _Now she is, allegedly, a dance floor tragedy_

They sneak into the house, careful not to wake Michael's parents and head directly to his spacious room. With most of the books and posters packed away in cardboard boxes in the very corner it felt like being in a whole new room. Though he was the one to help Michael pack up his belongings it still was surreal. He remembered packing so slowly, as if prolonging the move would prevent everything from changing. As if Michael would just stay.

"Does the prospect of more caffeine beckon?"

"Hardly worth the question," he smiled in turn. The moment alone allowed him to kick a stray copy of Coraline in resentment. Funnily enough, he's pretty sure he's the one who gifted it to the older boy years ago.

He took the mug presented to him when the other teen returned. The taller of the two delicately placed In the Flat Field in his compact gramophone. The younger boy treasured moments like this and his chest constricted at the thought of it being one of the last.

"What's wrong?"

"Hmm?" Blood rushed to his ears as the tried to play it off. The previous song decrescendo-ed and faded to the intro of Nerves. He cursed how much the song suited the situation.

"Don't do that." His voice was neutral, neither comforting nor annoyed, and so very Michael. Pete was even more worried about how to respond.

"Everything," he fell dramatically to the bed, "everything is wrong."

Michael reached for him, pale fingers languidly combed through dye damaged hair.

"High school will come to an abrupt end, I assure you. We'll all be out of this damned town and reunited in Denver soon enough."

A million little demands ran through his head. "Don't leave" or "fuck school, take me with you". _Something_ along those lines. _Anything_. The words collapsed in his throat and died on his tongue.

When he didn't offer a response Michael continued. "I hate how all those cliches our parents told us about these four years passing at a ridiculously quick pace ended up being right."

It startled Pete to only just realize how quintessential the last three years of average teenage angst had been to his life. Nothing monumental had really taken place in those years but that was beside the point. The next stage of life did not bother to prepare him for it's arrival, it came unannounced from nothingness. Unknown and undesired.

"True. We always bitched and moaned about high school but I'd give anything for it to remain." The monotony of high school had become unexpectedly comfortable.

"I'll be back every weekend." Michael snorted. "I don't like the thought of all this either but it won't be too different."

Suddenly, he felt sort of selfish. Whatever he was feeling Michael felt the same, and he didn't even have Henrietta and Firkle to help him cope.

"I know," he stated, trying to ignore his own foolishness, "but it's so damn lonely here." He smiled.

Michael chuckled in return. "I assume that means you'll be waiting then? On me, not the train."

"Depends on the train."

His eyes rolled toward the heavens. "At least you'll have some of my letters."

"Will you be writing to me then?"

"Why not?" His skinny shoulders shrugged. "It might be kind of pointless considering how frequently I'll be visiting but I think it would help us cling to the little sanity we still possess. And of coarse, the art of writing letters is slowly becoming lost in the Age of Text Messaging."

"I expect vivid descriptions of college life along with your best poetry."

"I'm sure all this separation will grant me more than a few visits from Melpomene. I'll wax stanzas of the likes you've never read."

"Then maybe I'll invoke Erato." He swallowed thickly, the words so uncharacteristically bold of him.

"Maybe you already have."

Their silhouettes merge to one ephemeral shadow being. Spindly fingers met his own, his dipped into the contours of Michael's bony hand, tracing patterns and promises. He laid there with the confidence that the man laying beside him, his greatest friend, would always be a constant.

* * *

 _"Hot and burning in your nostrils_

 _Pouring down your gaping mouth_

 _Your molten bodies, blanket of cinders_

 _Caught in the throes, eh_

 _Oh whoa, oh your city lies in dust, my friend"_

 _~Cities in Dust, Siouxsie and the Banshees_

* * *

 **A/N: The whole letter conversation toward the end is a reference to the lyrics of Nine While Nine by The Sisters of Mercy. Melpomene is the muse of Greek mythology that inspired tragic poetry. Erato was the muse of erotic writings. Early Pete mentioned Blade, referring to the vampire hunter of the Blade series.**


End file.
